President Donald Trump’s public pressure campaign to indict political opponents, including former FBI Director James Comey, is giving Republican strategists pause before next year’s midterm elections.

Even Attorney General Pam Bondi was reportedly among the Department of Justice attorneys who had concerns about prosecuting Comey without a good prospect of success at trial.

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But after a grand jury in Virginia on Thursday decided to formally charge Comey for allegedly lying to Congress and obstructing a congressional proceeding, Republicans are advising Trump and the White House to proceed with caution, contending it may not help the GOP with voters next year.

Republican strategist John Feehery, for instance, warned Trump and the White House that there could be consequences for the GOP among independent voters when Democrats already have an advantage in the House. 

Democrats currently have a 3.6 percentage point edge over Republicans in generic congressional balloting polling, according to RealClearPolitics, with House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) only having a two-seat majority in the chamber.

“This is what Trump wants,” Feehery told the Washington Examiner. “I’m sure there’s an element within the MAGA movement that wants some revenge on Comey, but I’m not sure if that is politically that wise. I don’t think people really want to politicize the Justice Department. I don’t think that plays with the swing voters.”

For Feehery, Trump’s MAGA base has “a lot bigger issues that they care about,” including the economy and repealing what they would consider woke policies, though he conceded some members would likely endorse an indictment against the likes of former National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases director Anthony Fauci.

“The issue of swing voters is something that I don’t think the White House has taken under consideration,” he said. “These are people that voted for Trump last time who probably voted for [former President Barack] Obama somewhere down the line, and they have higher priorities. If you get yourself kind of stuck in some of these other things, you can’t really communicate on those higher priorities.”

Suffolk University Political Research Center director David Paleologos argued there are Trump supporters and independent men who “enjoy the daily red meat from Trump administration attacks, so long as their 401k plans continue to grow and break records.”

“But if the stock market collapses in the next 12 months, it won’t be political entertainment anymore, as they watch their personal wealth diminish,” Paleologos told the Washington Examiner. “These same voters may then see Trump’s preoccupation with daily attacks on people as petty, irresponsible, and hurtful to their family’s financial health. Money talks.”

On Friday, Trump previewed the possibility of more indictments, saying that, as he departed the White House for the Ryder Cup, “It’s not a list, but I think there’ll be others.”

“They did it with me for four years,” he said in response to concerns regarding the precedent he was setting. “Before I came to office, I started hearing rumors about Russia. … It’s about justice. Really, it’s not revenge. It’s also about the fact that you can’t let this go on. They are sick, radical-left people, and they can’t get away with it.”

The White House brushed off any midterm risk to Trump after the Comey indictment. On the campaign trail, Trump openly talked of payback for his opponents, saying, “Sometimes revenge can be justified.”

“President Trump is delivering on every single campaign promise he made to the American people and then some,” Abigail Jackson, White House spokeswoman, told the Washington Examiner. “He’s secured the border, passed historic tax cuts for working Americans, delivered massive investments in American businesses, and is addressing violent crime plaguing our communities. Americans can trust that when the President makes a promise, he keeps it.”

In a video posted to Instagram, Comey defended himself, saying, “My family and I have known for years that there are costs to standing up to Donald Trump, but we couldn’t imagine ourselves living any other way. Comey’s daughter and son-in-law were fired and resigned from the Justice Department, respectively.

“We will not live on our knees, and you shouldn’t either,” he said. “I’m not afraid, and I hope you’re not either. I hope instead you are engaged, you are paying attention, and you will vote like your beloved country depends on it, which it does. My heart is broken for the Department of Justice, but I have great confidence in the federal judicial system, and I’m innocent. So let’s have a trial and keep the faith.”

Comey’s indictment on Thursday came after Trump last weekend wrote a social media post to Bondi complaining about the lack of action related to Comey, Sen. Adam Schiff (D-CA), and New York Attorney General Letitia James. The charges also came before Tuesday’s five-year statute of limitations deadline after Comey’s appearance in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee in 2020, during which the Justice Department is alleging he lied to Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) about whether he authorized a leak in 2016 to the Wall Street Journal with respect to his investigation into former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

Earlier, Trump last week fired former interim U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia Erik Siebert over his reluctance to indict Comey, replacing him with Lindsay Halligan, who was his personal attorney during the federal classified documents case before she became White House senior associate staff secretary at the start of his second administration. 

Democrats have criticized the Comey indictment for demonstrating that the Justice Department “has become a political tool of a vengeful president.” 

“President Trump wears his corruption like a badge of honor and defies anyone daring to challenge him,” Senate Judiciary Committee ranking member Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) wrote in a statement. “The Attorney General willingly complies with every order from the White House. Is there one Republican left in Washington who gives a damn?”

Senate Judiciary chairman Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) was more circumspect, repeating that “at the time of Comey’s alleged false statements and obstruction, my colleagues and I had active investigations.” 

“If the facts and the evidence support the finding that Comey lied to Congress and obstructed our work, he ought to be held accountable,” he wrote.

Trump and Comey, a former registered Republican who was appointed FBI director in 2013 by Obama, have had a tense relationship since the president’s first administration, when Trump asked Comey in February 2017 not to investigate former national security adviser Michael Flynn over his relationship with then-Russian Ambassador to the U.S. Sergey Kislyak.

Trump fired Comey in May 2017, which gave way to the appointment of special counsel Robert Mueller to investigate the Trump campaign’s alleged ties to Russia. While Mueller found Russia engaged in extensive attacks to disrupt the 2016 election, he did not find that the Trump campaign knowingly coordinated with Russia. Trump has long derided the Russia investigation as a political “witch hunt” that clouded the first term of his presidency.

Per former U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District in Arkansas Bud Cummins, Comey and others politically weaponized the Justice Department.

“He helped shut down investigations into Hillary Clinton’s email server, her team’s intentional destruction of evidence, and the investigations into billions of dollars flowing through the Clinton Foundation,” Cummins told the Washington Examiner. “He ignored intercepted Democrat party communications indicating the Obama administration was conspiring to obstruct justice. Comey enthusiastically worked to set up a completely phony two-year special counsel investigation of President Donald Trump. He stole documents from the FBI and leaked them to the media while he was the director of the FBI. He lied to Congress.” 

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Cummins added: “A jury may be convinced that Comey’s conduct was simply unethical, ego-driven, and incompetent, and he has the right to convince them of that. But Comey’s misdeeds were serious ones and now he must answer for them.”